One
dollar wages threat to PS
WASHINGTON (January 5):
American Public Servants are feeling just a little more threatened this week
after Congressional Republicans gave themselves the power to slash the annual
salary of any individual Federal worker to as low as $US1, and the budget of
any individual Federal program right down to zero.
Republicans revived an obscure
provision enacted by Congress in 1876 that empowers any Member of Congress to
submit an amendment to an Appropriations Bill that targets the funding of a
specific Government program or employee.
The rule was devised before
the advent of a non-political, career Public Service and has been rarely invoked.
The fear is the revived law could be used to cut programs supporting things
like the Clean Air Act, which some
Republicans may not approve.
The rule appears most
disconcerting when viewed in the context of the incoming Administration’s
apparent hostility toward the independence of the Public Service.
*********
PS head sacked — again
BANJUL
(January 5): Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has sacked the head of the
country’s Public Service — for the second time in six months.
Sulayman
Samba was initially dismissed in June last year, seven months after his initial
appointment then reappointed two months later. No treasons were given for
either sacking.
Mr Samba has
held many senior positions under President Jammeh including Deputy
Secretary-General and Permanent Secretary for various Government Ministries.
President
Jammeh’s mandate is due to end on January 28 after he surprisingly lost the
election to Opposition candidate, Adama Barrow. Despite initially conceding
defeat, Mr Jammeh is now refusing to hand over power and has vowed to fight off
any foreign military intervention.
*********
Ill wind blowing in public sector
OTTAWA
(January 10): Canadian Public Servants took a record number of sick days in
2016 according to annual job market statistics released by Statistics Canada.
The average
public sector worker missed 13.5 days of work last year compared with 8.3
days for workers in the private sector.
The gap
between public and private sector absenteeism has been widening for years
but last year that disparity hit an all-time high, as Government workers took
5.2 more sick days than those in the private sector.
According
to a separate study as much as 80 per cent of the sick-leave gap is the result
of the make-up of the Government workforce. Workers in the public sector are
generally older, there are more females than males, and most are unionised —
all three of those groups tend to take more time off.
*********
Senior
professors shown the door
KUALA LUMPUR (January 8): Malaysian public
universities have been stripped of their senior staff with 156 out of 506
professors, aged between 61 and 70, not having their contracts renewed last
year due to budget cuts.
Chief Executive of the National Council of
Professors, Datuk Raduan Che Rose said the trend might affect Malaysian
universities’ ability to compete internationally.
While the official retirement age for professors is
60, those past that age have usually continued to work under contract, subject
to the ability of their respective institutions to pay for them. It is this
group that has been most affected by funding cuts.
“In order to compete internationally, the country
should find ways to retain our professors to at least up to 65 years old and
also attract good foreign professors into our system,” Dr Raduan said.
*********
Former EU envoy to retire
LONDON (January 8): Four
days after his shock resignation as the United Kingdom’s Ambassador to the
European Union, Sir Ivan Rogers has quit the Public Service with immediate
effect.
A spokesperson for the Foreign
Office said: "Sir Ivan Rogers did not seek any further Civil Service
appointment and has therefore resigned from the Civil Service with immediate
effect.”
It is understood Sir Ivan
will receive three months’ pay in lieu of notice, in line with standard Foreign
Office terms, but no special pay-off was offered or sought.
In a fiery message to staff
announcing his resignation from the Brussels post, Sir Ivan had hit out at the
"ill-founded arguments and muddled thinking" of politicians and said Public
Servants still did not know the
Government's plans for exiting the European Union.
*********
Workers quit posts to fight poll
NAIROBI (January 8):
Kenya’s Public Service could be facing a personnel crisis as hundreds of
workers, including Cabinet Secretaries, heads of Government Agencies and
national and county employees hand in their resignations to contest this year’s
General Election.
Some county [Local
Government] executives have already tendered their resignations even before the
February 8 deadline.
The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill 2016
requires Public Servants who want to contest the election to leave office six
months beforehand.
Chair of the Public
Service Commission, Margaret Kobia said resignations would be accepted by the
Government and those leaving would hand over to the senior-most officers in
their Departments “so there will be no vacuum”.
*********
More work needed on PS reform
WASHINGTON (January 5): The
United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) says it has made significant
strides towards a more modern Government personnel system, but has urged future
Administrations to allow it to continue with the work.
Acting Director of the OPM,
Beth Cobert said there was a need for more comprehensive reforms that addressed
structural challenges to improved Government-wide performance.
She suggested Congress
bring together lawmakers, representatives from the President’s National Council
on Federal Labor-Management Relations, members from industry and academic
experts to develop new recommendations to modernise personnel policies.
She also suggested Congress
consider targeted legislation to help Agencies more quickly bring in students,
recent graduates and young talent with mission-critical skills.
*********
Call to whip PS into shape
KUALA LUMPUR (January
11): An organisation representing former Malaysian Public Servants has urged heavier
punishment, including whipping, be imposed on officials found abusing power and
involved in corruption.
The Alumni
Association of the Administrative and Diplomatic Officers said corruption involving
large sums of money among Public Service officials was disturbing and damaging
to the reputation of the service and the country.
It said public
officials should not abuse the positions and power they had been entrusted with
to betray and commit criminal breach of trust.
"It should be
noted that there are countries that impose the death penalty on Public Servants
found guilty of corruption, especially those in senior positions," it said.
*********
Chief gets free hand to fight corruption
LILONGWE (January 7):
Malawi President Arthur Mutharika has sworn in a new head of the country’s
Public Service, challenging him to “root out corruption wherever he finds it”.
Naming Lloyd Muhara as the
Chief Secretary to the Government, President Mutharika said he had a lot of
confidence in Mr Muhara and Malawians had high expectations of him.
“I want you to root out corruption from the
Civil Service. Your office is mandated to discipline, to suspend and to fire
people, President Mutharika said.
“I want wrong-doers to be
fired and prosecuted. We are better off parting with people who bring
performance down than keeping them in the system. The time for playing games is
over.”
*********
Government workers on the rise
OTTAWA (January 9): The number
of Canadian Federal Public Servants employed in and around the national capital
of Ottawa is now at its highest since 2010, when the previous Conservative Government
began cutting jobs.
Statistics Canada said the total
number of Federal employees working in the National Capital Region in 2016
jumped by 14,000 to 145,000, representing a 10.5 per cent increase over
the previous year.
Experts said the growth was
directly tied to the Liberal Government carrying out election promises to
create new programs for Canadians.
Describing the current
Government as “hyperactive”, President of the Canadian Association of
Professional Employees, Emmanuelle Tremblay said that after deep cuts into services
there had been a realisation that Departments “cannot function below the bare
bones".
*********
Restive workers want promotion
ABUJA (January 10): There
is mounting concern in the Nigerian Federal Public Service over a failure to
promote qualified employees, some of whom have been stuck in their current
posts for more than a decade.
Now the workers say they
are tired of waiting for head of the Public Service, Winifred Oyo-Ita to take
action on their behalf and may take their case directly to President Muhammadu
Buhari.
Most of the affected Public
Servants are due for promotion from Assistant to Deputy Directors and from
Deputy to Directors. Many of them do not have many more years to spend in the Public
Service either on account of age or years of service.
It is believed the
stagnation stems from the suspension of the tenured policy by the Government
whereby all Directors who had served up to eight years on one post had to give
way to new candidates.
*********
PS troubleshooters to be expanded
LONDON (January 5): A team of young
United Kingdom Public Servants is set to double in size in 2017, after
Whitehall's operational delivery chief, Ruth Owen said Departmental leaders had
been won over by the new model.
The Surge and Rapid Response
Team was set up in 2014 after the Passport Office and HM Revenue and Customs,
which have both reduced frontline staff numbers in recent years, drew flak for
customer service failures.
Problems at the two Agencies
prompted Ministers to order the creation of a flexible team of Public Servants able
to quickly support frontline or back office staff anywhere in Government,
either in response to an immediate crisis or to help with anticipated surges in
demand.
The team began with around 200
newly-recruited apprentices, whose contracts require them to be available at 24
hours' notice. So far the team has
worked to support organisations including the Foreign Office, UK Visas and
Immigration and the Rural Payments Agency.
*********
Union opposes pension reforms
KINGSTON (January 6): The main union representing Jamaican Public
Service workers says it is unhappy with a proposed reform of workers’ pensions.
President of the Jamaica Civil Service Association, O'Neil Grant said
the Pensions (Public Service) Bill, which
the Government hopes to pass into law by April, would have the effect of
reducing the value of the pension.
"It is going to go down from an accrual rate of 66.66 per cent to
about 60 per cent in terms of the last salary," Mr Grant said.
The Government wants to pass the Bill as part of a $US1.7 billion ($A2.2
billion) standby arrangement with the International Monetary Fund.
*********
Workers told to be wary of gifts
JERUSALEM (January 10): Senior
Israeli Public Servants have been reminded of the rules forbidding public
officials from accepting gifts and other benefits, the Civil Service Commission
saying it could be considered a criminal offense.
The warning follows investigations
being conducted against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on suspicions that he
accepted such gifts and other benefits from private businesspeople.
The person in charge of
disciplinary matters at the Commission, Assaf Rosenberg said he decided to
clarify the rules after receiving requests to do so from a number of people in
recent days.
"Public officials are
forbidden to accept gifts, except according to the conditions set in law and
the Civil Service regulations," Mr Rosenberg said.
*********
Poor
quality PS ‘threatens reforms’
ACCRA (January 11): The head of a leading Ghanaian
think tank says the poor quality of the country’s Public Service could thwart
the plans of the new Government to introduce reforms.
Executive Director of the Institute of Democratic
Governance, Emmanuel Akwetey said President Nana Akufo-Addo would need to
decide if he would just take the machinery that existed within the public
sector or change it.
“The Civil Service is broken in many ways and if we
want to fix it, we have to look seriously, first of all, at the political
relationship and bureaucratic relations… the relationship between politicians
and the bureaucrats, Dr Akwetey said.
“The human factor and the political situation
within the Public Service could be a very significant constraint to its achievement
and I think we might have to look at that carefully.”
The full Public Service News international news
service resumes on January 24 at psnews.com.au/aps/world
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